2023-09-06 05:30:00
The communities of Barra de Santiago have organized themselves into local sustainable harvesting groups to extract blue crab while respecting the minimum size. Image: Evelyn Vargas Carmona / PxPBy Evelyn Vargas Carmona
SAN SALVADOR – The communities of the Barra de Santiago Complex brought the blue crab to the brink of extinction in El Salvador and, with it, part of their culture and livelihood. While some studies focus on the impacts of its decline on the mangrove and the populations that live there, others point to its relationship with the migration of people from the coasts facing the Pacific Ocean in this country.
“When I was a child, the gallery mangrove was intense. You entered the mangrove forest at midday and looked as if there was no daylight. It was thick. And there the crab was abundant, wonderful. I thought it was never going to be exterminated, but unfortunately it was.”
The childhood memories are from José Francisco Pineda, originally from Costa Brava, about 105 kilometers from the capital of El Salvador, who says he “takes advantage” of the blue crab (Gecarcinus square) since he was nine years old.
Theirs is one of the communities in the lower basin of the Paz River, located in the municipalities of Acajutla, Jujutla and San Francisco Menéndez, in the departments of Sonsonate and Ahuachapán, where blue crab is a traditional part of the diet and one of the main means of subsistence.
Also known locally as tiguacal, this decapod crustacean is one of the protagonists of the fauna and biodiversity of the salt forests of the Barra de Santiago Complex, a wetland declared of “International Importance” in 2014 by the Ramsar Convention, which protects these ecosystems. This is the seventh Ramsar site in El Salvador, notable for concentrating the largest area of mangroves in the west of this Central American country.
But, over the years, the presence of the blue crab here has been decreasing until it is, today, at risk of disappearing.
“In recent years, the species has experienced a decline in its fishing, due to the degradation of its ecosystem and overfishing of the resource,” specified the Salvadoran Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in 2017, in a study on its fishery.
The lack of scientific knowledge about the state of the populations or their ability to regenerate is included among the reasons that led to excessive extraction. Added to this is a loss of mangroves, estimated at 50%, and the impact of various climatic phenomena.
Jose Franciso Pineda has captured and marketed blue crab since his childhood. Image: Evelyn Vargas Carmona / PxPunbalanced dynamics
The Barra de Santiago Complex extends across 11,519 hectares. Of them, the majority portion (4000 hectares) is dedicated to agricultural activity; just over 3,000 correspond to marine areas and 2,300 to mangrove forests.
The latter are home to around 75% of El Salvador’s “commercially important” coastal fauna, describes the Ramsar Sites Information Service.
Species, such as the blue crab, that depend on this ecosystem to feed, spawn and reproduce. But, many of them are threatened or in danger of extinction, as is the case of the yellow-naped parrot, in critical condition according to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Despite this, threats to the ecosystem add up and expand: unregulated urbanization, excessive grazing, advance of the agricultural frontier – mainly due to the expansion of sugar cane – and the growing demand for wood for construction – which implies deforestation. , changes in the hydrology of the area and pollution—are what Ramsar mentions.
An IUCN report coincides with the diagnosis, and adds: pollution, overfishing, tourism expansion, illegal logging and hunting, forest fires, usurpation of state lands, reduction of flows, construction of irrigation canals and effects of climate vulnerability.
All of this impacts the health of the mangrove, but also that of the more than 26,000 people who, according to Ramsar, live in the Barra de Santiago Complex, distributed in six cantons: both their food and their means of subsistence depend, to a large extent of coastal biodiversity.
Now, although the blue crab has always had a prominent role on the table and economy of these marine-coastal communities, its contribution goes further, since this crustacean is an ecological regulator that contributes to the very preservation of the mangrove.
Therefore, its decline or extinction represents an impact on the dynamics of the ecosystem itself.
And the consequences do not stop there. Because, like a domino effect, the decline of this and other species associated with local livelihoods also leads—in conjunction with other factors—for many people to migrate from the coast and look for new destinations to settle.
Infographic: Pablo Omar Iglesias / PxPDriver of migration?
The mobilization of people driven by the decline or disappearance of a key species in its environment is not a new phenomenon. Especially in developing countries.
In these, the loss of biodiversity “means, in the first instance, the decrease in the livelihoods of the local communities that make use of these resources,” is explained in a technical report on the state of abundance and extraction sites of the blue crab in the managed areas of Barra de Santiago and Metalío.
Already in 2019, 25% of the crab collectors from Barra de Santiago consulted in a market study carried out by Goal, an international organization in favor of the most vulnerable groups of the populations, stated that they had thought about emigrating or had relatives who already they had made it to the United States.
The reason? Difficult economic situations, some of them linked to the degradation of ecosystems and the impacts of climate change.
Hurricanes, floods and floods (floods that lead to the overflowing of a river or stream) are included among the adverse events identified. These affect the state of their homes, but also affect the availability of marine-coastal species, which depresses their economies.
And the phenomenon has been escalating since then, to the point that, in Migrations in the World 2022the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warns: “The majority of internal displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean was due to disasters, and not violence or conflict.”
Although the loss of biodiversity is not yet on the IOM’s list of migratory causes, it is expected that it will soon do so.
This is particularly true if we consider that around one million animal and plant species are in danger of extinction today, according to the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Ipbes), and the impact that this entails on ecosystems and the livelihoods of those who make them their home.
What happens with the blue crab in El Salvador is an example of this. But, this is a story that does not end there. Because the coastal communities of Barra de Santiago made rescuing the crustacean their way of resisting and preserving their ways of life, culture and biodiversity.
The decline in fishing is another reality faced by the artisanal fishing communities of Barra de Santiago in El Salvador. Image: Evelyn Vargas Carmona / PxPTo the rescue of the blue crab
The decline in blue crab populations and fisheries in the early 2000s did not go unnoticed by local communities. How to achieve its sustainable use, then, became the challenge.
With this objective, in 2006, 20 families from La Chácara Island began a governance process to organize the extraction of mangrove resources, including blue crab.
This led to the creation by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) of what is now known as Local Sustainable Use Plans (Plas).
These plans are carried out by organized groups from the Barra de Santiago, La Chácara, El Embarcadero, El Mango, El Ceibillo, Costa Brava and Los Limones communities, and in the formation of the Probosque Association.
Thus, since 2012, the Plas became one of the most important local governance instruments to regulate the use of mangrove resources and monitor compliance with the standards established by the MARN in this Ramsar site.
Based on this, extraction quotas, minimum sizes, fishing bans, control and surveillance tasks, channel clearing, reforestation and waste collection campaigns, patrols during periods of “crab runs” (when the female comes out) were introduced. from the cave to deposit the eggs in the estuary or the sea) and even the relocation of species after extreme climatic events.
And its results have been positive, with a significant recovery of the blue crab and the protection of the mangrove. However, the IUCN technical report warns, efforts must be redoubled for the conservation and sustainable use of the species in the PLAS, especially in Costa Brava, Los Mangos and El Ceibillo, where low abundance values were recorded.
Coastal landscape of Barra de Santiago, on the coast of El Salvador on the Pacific Ocean. Image: Evelyn Vargas Carmona / PxPOpen paths
Now, local strategies for the conservation of blue crab not only included these types of measures, but have also been accompanied by the creation of productive alternatives, such as the production of mangrove honey and related ecosystems.
José Francisco Pineda is included among those who found a new path to develop there.
Curiously for his current activity, Pineda lost his left eye to a bee sting when he was a teenager. But, he overcame fear. Today, he is one of 16 people to be certified as a beekeeper, supplementing his income with the production and marketing of raw honey, and exemplifying the resilience of these coastal communities.
This article is part of the Planeta Community, a journalistic project led by Periodistas por el Planeta (PxP) in Latin America, of which IPS is a part.
RV: EG
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